Guys, I want to turn back to
Psalm 121. When I was reading this Psalm,
I had three thoughts immediately, and I wanted to share them with
you. And the first thought was this, is that life is very, very
short. And whether a person dies at
birth or lives to be 100 years old, the scripture uses one word
to describe that life. This is the word. James 4.14
says, for what is your life? It's even a vapor that appears
for a little time and then vanishes away. Y'all eating soup or drank
a cup of coffee, vapor, it's that steam that comes off there.
How long does it last? Just a second, a millisecond
just goes up and it's gone. Life is very, very short. Second
thought I had this, being born is a dangerous business. business
because we're born into trouble. Now the psalmist here, he's in
trouble. Verse 1 presupposes that. He says, I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. Who needs
help? A man who's in trouble. What
kind of trouble are we born into? Trouble with God. You see, He's
holy. And his demand is just that holiness,
perfection, righteousness. We're born in this world with
this evil, wicked, sinful nature that can do no good before God. Unless the Lord intervenes for
us, it's over. Being born is very, very dangerous
business. But here was the third thought,
salvation. And I'm speaking from our experience
standpoint. Salvation, as far as our experience
is concerned, is found in a look. Now look at what the psalmist
says here in verse one. He says, I will lift up mine
eyes under the hills from whence cometh my help. Now he's in trouble. And he doesn't say I'm gonna
craft a brilliant plan and execute that plan to get myself out of
the trouble. And he doesn't say I'm gonna take on my enemy Face
forward, fight the battle myself. It doesn't say He's going to
do something to make His circumstances better. What He says here is
He is determined to do one thing, He's going to look. He's going
to pick up His head and He's going to look to the hills from
whence cometh His help. Who's in the hills? It's where
the throne of God is, on which the Lord Jesus Christ sits. That's the look. Now what does
that look look like? Let's turn over to a familiar
story. Turn over to Numbers chapter 21. everyone in this room is very
familiar with this story. But you know how it starts the
children of Israel they murmur against the Lord. They are disquieted
with the circumstances He's providing. So, look what happens in verse
6, Numbers 21, And the Lord sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people. Notice the people
that means everybody got bit. And much people of Israel died. represents? Sin. Who got bit? Everybody. One person in that
camp who didn't get bit. Those snakes got everybody. How
are we born in this world? Sinners. Ain't nobody immune.
And here's the end state, if there is no intervention, if
we don't get the anti-venom, if we don't get the antidote,
death, the final death, that's what's in store for us. Look
at verse 7, Therefore the people came to Moses and said, we have
sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray
unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses
prayed for the people. Notice the consequences of the
bite, separation. They can no longer approach unto
God. They have to have one who has favor with God who can approach
for them. Verse nine, verse eight. And
the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent and set
it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that everyone that
is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made
a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass
that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent
of brass, he lived." Now, who's commanded to look? Everybody
who was bitten. who was commanded to look. There
was one prerequisite for looking to the Serpent of Brass and living,
you had to have been bitten, that was it. What were they looking
to? The Serpent of Brass, that's
Christ. Brass, the mixture of copper and tin, His deity and
His humanity. Put on a pole just as Christ
was on the pole. But also this, why a serpent? wonder about that? Like if this is Christ, why not
a shepherd's crook? Why not a lamb? Why a serpent?
Because the serpent is the problem. Because that is exactly what
God the Father saw on that cross. He saw the problem. He saw sin.
The Lord Jesus Christ was made the sins of His people. He was
made to be the problem. That's why He died. That's why
He suffered under the wrath of God. And here is the command,
everybody who looks to Him and trusts Him for what He did, They
live. And what was the success rate
of this remedy? 100%. Everybody who looked lived. This is the look of faith. Now,
when I was reading through this psalm, here's what I came to.
This psalm is full of promises. It is full of promises to people
who are looking. right now if your hope is that
serpent on that pole, if it's Christ and Him crucified that's
all you've got. You've got some promises. I see
six of them here, I want to share them with you. Look at verse
2 of your text. The psalmist says this, he says,
"'My help cometh from the Lord.'" Now here's the first promise,
to those looking the Lord is your help. Now, let's say I wanted
to build a deck, right? I might ask some of you to help.
And what that would presuppose is this, is you guys are going
to come over, and I'm going to do a little bit of work, and
you're going to do a little bit of work. And through that cooperative
effort, we would build a deck. And that's a great analogy for
false religion. And so everyone's sinful, everybody misses the
mark. And so here's what you need to do, right? You call on
God, you allow him to save you. He does his part, you do your
part. And through that cooperative effort, you're saved, right?
That's false religion as a whole. That's exactly what it is, it's
false. There's nothing to that. Let me make some very clear statements
here. Number one, the Christ of the Bible makes absolutely
no offers. If you want to see the onus of
false religion, it's the acceptance of Christ, His reception. You
must receive Him to make His work effectual for you. Well,
let me say this. If the Lord has done anything
for you, you will receive Him. And if He has passed you by and
not done anything for you, you will not receive Him. Everyone
who He helps receives Him. Not up for you and me to decide
or to accept. If he helps, he helps that man,
and that's just the way it is. His help is only for the helpless.
If you can add to this thing, if you can in some way assist
yourself or assist him in any way, you exclude yourself from
his help. He is of no effect to you whatsoever. You're on
your own. His help is only for the helpless, those who can't
do anything for themselves, who can't bring anything before God
and say, you should save me because I, you fill in that blank right
there. But for everybody who's helpless, who has absolutely
nothing to bring, he's your help. Now, what does that help look
like? Let me read you this. This is
Deuteronomy 33, 29. It says, happy art thou, O Israel. like unto thee, O people saved
by the Lord, the shield of thy help?" Now, there's many aspects
to salvation, many, many, and the Lord helps us in many ways.
But if we had to boil it down to one singular thing, what is
that help? It's a shield. What does a shield
do? It takes the blows. The sword
of God's justice was coming for us. We're all sinners before
God, and it was gonna slay us. His justice demanded it. But
our shield, Christ, came up in our stead, and he took the blows.
And that shield, it bears the scars of that blow to this very
day, but that shield wasn't broken. That shield actually broke the
sword, swallowed it up. And now that sword can't touch
us. That sword has absolutely nothing to say to us, because
he's our help, because he already took the blows, and it's gone.
Now, look at verse 2 again. Here's the second promise. My
help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. Colossians 1, 16 and 17 says,
For by him, speaking of Christ, were all things created that
are in heaven and are in earth, visible and invisible, whether
they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers.
All things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before
all things, and by Him all things consist." Everything we see,
everything that has ever been made, it was made by one man,
and that man is Jesus Christ. When you make something what
do you do? You You exercise sovereign control over that thing that
you made. He made everything. He made everybody. You know what
that means? That means he exercises sovereign control over his creation.
And you know what that means? We can sum all that up to mean?
That means he is the only one who can truly be trusted. Now
you and I should strive to be trustworthy people in this life.
We should strive to keep our word almost at all costs. But here's the problem. You and
I aren't sovereign. are not in control. External
forces can work on us that could keep us from being able to keep
our Word. But with the Lord there are no
external forces. He controls all the forces. That means if
He purposes to do something He is going to do it. In fact it's
already done and no one can sway Him. No one can stop Him from
achieving that purpose. Like I said before, what does
that mean? That means He is absolutely trustworthy in every respect.
promise that is made in this book he's absolutely good to
it. And this is a promise that I think gives me more joy than
many others. John 6, 37 he says, "'All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me.'" And here's the promise,
"'And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'" Now here's
the first statement here, "'All the Father gives me shall come
to me.'" You know who's going to believe on Christ? You know
who's going to look to Him? Everybody the Father gave them. Everybody
the Father gave them in divine election. Everybody the Father
gave them in the covenant of grace. They're all going to look
to Christ. They're going to be made to.
They're going to be called by irresistible, invincible grace.
They'll have no choice, and they'll want no choice. We know exactly
who's going to look to Christ. But consider the promise here.
This is the promise to those looking. Everybody who comes
to Him, He will in no wise cast out. There has never been one
sinner who can't come up with the goods can't stand before
God, who can't do anything for his own salvation that Christ
ever turned him away. Every single man who's come that
way he's been saved. And folks that is a promise,
a promise made from a man who cannot lie and cannot be changed. Now look at verse 3, it's the
third promise. It says, He will not suffer thy
foot to be moved. those looking, looking to Christ,
He is your stability. Let me read you this, this is
Hebrews 6 verse 19 it says, "'Which hope we have as an anchor of
the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that
within the veil, whether the forerunner is for us entered
even Jesus, made in high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now you all are familiar with
the temple and earlier the tabernacle. In there you had the holy place
where the priests did their work. And then you had the Holy of
Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. And you had that huge
veil that separated the two. And as the priests were doing
the work and as people would pass by, that veil was the sign, your
sins have separated you from your God. You can't come back
here. Holy of Holies you can't enter
in back here. Your sins had separated you from
your God. But on the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ what happened to that veil? That veil was ripped
in two from the top to the bottom signifying that everybody Christ
died for they now have free access to God. That separation was removed
because the sin was removed. serpent of brass on that pole
dying under the weight and the wrath of God. As He swallowed
up that wrath what He did was this, He removed the sin. He
removed the separation. And now all God's people, everybody
He died for has free access to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
But I think this is the greater point here. It says He's the
anchor of our soul within the veil. We're anchored there. This
state of sinlessness, this state of acceptance before God in Christ,
this is an unchangeable state. He's our anchor. As long as Christ
stands before His Father and He's holy, and He's accepted,
and He has perfect communion with the Father, and He couldn't
be any more pleased with His Son that's exactly how every
member of the elect stands. He is our anchor within that
veil. And Henry Mahan used this illustration,
I'm going to use it, it's a good one. So, have you ever seen a
boat? It's about every year we've been on a boat before. You drop
that anchor on the boat, right? boat as the waves come it goes
up and down. And that boat may turn left and right, the face
of that boat may turn but the relative positioning of that
boat does not change and it doesn't change because of that anchor.
Now in this life there's going to be waves. Sometimes we're
going to have the strength and the faith of David as he charged
toward Goliath. And other times we're going to
have weak faith just like Peter who denied he ever knew the Lord.
But what does not change is our positioning before God because
Christ is our anchor within that veil. He is our standing. He is our surety before God.
And as long as He stands folks everything is fine. And that
standing He has before His Father is never going to change. Look at verse 4, "'Behold, he
that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.'" To those
looking, Christ is both attentive and effective. Now I want you
to turn to an Old Testament story. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 18. I'll give you the back story
here. The whole children of Israel had all fallen into idol worship.
They started worshiping Baal. He was their false god. He was
their idol of their generation. Make no mistake, every generation
makes an idol. Every generation hates the true, so they make
the false. They make a god that they can
control. They make a god that they're comfortable with. And
in this generation, they called him Baal. And not to give the
prophets of this false god any credit whatsoever, but I can
at least appreciate the fact that they called him Baal, because
in this generation, they call him Jesus. But he's another Jesus. another Christ. He is not the
Jesus Christ of this Bible. This false God that's posed in
our generation, this false Christ, this false Jesus, He's a weakling.
He wants to save men but He can't. He's waiting on them to make
a decision or do something to make His work effectual. That's
not the Christ of this Bible. The Christ of this Bible saves
whom He will and He is successful in doing it. And men hate that
so they make their own false God. But this whole country that
turned over to Baal worship Elijah got tired of it. He said, you
people of Israel, I call for a judgment today. If Baal's God,
you worship him. But if the Lord is God, you worship
him. All right? And they said nothing. He says,
here's what we're going to do. You prophets of Baal, there's
like 400 of you guys. Here's what you're going to do. You
take a sacrifice, take a bullock, right? You put it on the wood,
and you cry unto Baal, right? But you place no fire under that
sacrifice. You cry unto him to make fire
fall down there. And I'm going to do the same thing, right?
You guys are going to go first. And the God that answers by fire,
he's God. And the children of Israel said,
yeah, that sounds good. And you think of the sweat that was rolling
off the prophets of Baal at this time, because it was time to
put their money where their mouth was. The true and living God
was going to be found in this action right here. So they go
first, right? They take the sacrifice and they put it on the wood,
and they jump all over the altar. And from morning to noon, they
cry unto Baal, and they cut themselves, and the blood flows. And then
as no one answered and no one answered because he's not real,
he doesn't exist. Elijah mocked them. And it was
in this mock that I saw the connection here. Look over verse 27. And it came to pass at noon that
Elijah mocked them and said, cry aloud for he is a God. Either he is talking or he's
pursuing, he's using the restroom or he's on a journey. adventure
he sleepeth and must be awake." Now that's what we are talking
about in our text it says, he shall neither slumber nor sleep.
And Elijah says right here, he must be sleeping. And he's being
sarcastic with him. What he's pointing to him is
this, he's not real that's why he's not answering. It's Elijah's
turn now. Elijah goes up and he says, here's
what you do, you take 12 barrels of water and you pour it all
over this sacrifice right here. Make sure there's no trickery
and you dig a trench and that water flowed all over that offering
and went through that trench. Look at verse 36. And it came
to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that
Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that thou art
God in Israel and that I am thy servant. And I have done all
these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou
hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord
fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones,
and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. Now, here's the point. This was
the promise. To those looking to Christ, he is both attentive
and effective. Now, when this fire came down,
absolutely nothing was left. The wood was burnt up, the stones
of the altar were burnt up, the sacrifice was burnt up, all the
water was licked up. There wasn't any dust left on
the ground there. It was absolutely nothing but
scorched earth. And concerning you and me and everyone who is
looking to Christ, it is scorched earth. absolutely nothing left. There is nothing to offend God
on our behalf. All our sin and all the wrath
of God that was laid up for that sin, it is gone. He is effective
and effective Christ for everyone looking to Him. But also this,
notice this, He is both effective and attentive. Elijah cried on
the Lord and the Lord answered. He always hears the cry of a
sinner. Not one time that a man came to this Christ begging mercy,
begging forgiveness, begging that Christ would be his surety,
that He turned him away. It's never once happened. To
everybody looking to Him, He is both attentive and effective. Now look at verse 5 of your text, please. The Lord is thy keeper. is thy
shade upon thy right hand." Now we can look at this a couple
of different ways. Effectively what is shade? It's a barrier
from light. It's exactly what it is. And
it's the same thing that's being talked about when we talked about
the Lord being our help and our shield. That sun, that light,
that fire of God's wrath was coming for us. But He's our shade.
He's the barrier from that wrath. He took the blows so that we
don't have to. But we can look at this in another
way. And this is something Drew read days ago I think. It says
1 Timothy 6.15, it says, What is that light that is being talked
about there? That is the light of God's holy
vision. light that searches out the secret
places of the heart, and He sees absolutely everything. We clean
up the cup around each other real well, but He sees the heart.
And that's a place that you and I can't stand in, not in and
of ourselves. The Lord is looking us over. But this is the beauty
of what is being said here. Not only is the Lord our shield,
He is our shade from that fiery wrath of God. True justification
and true union of Christ makes this the truth that we can stand
in that light. He's made us to where we can
stand in the light of God's holiness in Him. And the Lord can search
out the deepest crevices of our heart and He says, I see nothing
amiss. I see nothing but sinlessness. I see absolutely nothing but
righteousness. That's the reality of justification. That's the
reality of the Lord being made our sin and suffering the consequences.
And us being made His righteousness. When we stand in the holiness,
that light of God that sees everything, He sees nothing but that which
is acceptable to Him. He sees Christ. Now he follows it with an interesting
statement. This is verse six. It says, the
sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. I thought
about that for quite some time and it made this scripture come
to mind. This is Psalm 1912. It said, who can understand his
errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Now I've been worried before
about the sun smiting me, worried about sunburn, heat stroke, that
type of thing. One thing I have never thought
of is the moon smiting me and the moon doing me any harm whatsoever.
I've always felt very comfortable in the moonlight. Never once
thought about it harming me. But when David talks here about
cleanse thou me from secret faults, my own sin, I see the very tip
of the iceberg. I only see what's on the top
there. I only see what's on the surface. actual iceberg that's below the
water that's everything else. That's everything else I've done.
Everything else I've said. Everything else I've thought. And I'm not
even aware of all those sins. But He's cleansed us from even
the secret faults. Even those things we don't see.
That is the extent of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our
behalf. It is true cleanliness not even that which we are conscious
of but even those things we are not conscious of. Now look at verse 6, I'm sorry
the verse 7, Lord shall preserve thee from
all evil, He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve
thy going out, and thy coming in from this time forth, and
even forevermore. he talks about preservation here.
And I have no doubt the first application of this is the fact
that every believer, everyone looking to Christ is going to
be preserved in faith all the way to the end. We have Philippians
1.6 said, being confident of this very thing that He which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. Who begun the good work? gave
you that spark of faith and that spark of life? Christ did. You
know what He's going to do? He's going to preserve that all
the way to the very end. He is our preservation. This
is a promise to those looking. You're going to be preserved
to the very end in faith. There's another way we can look
at it though. While we walk through this world, we're going to be
preserved from the evil that is in this world. Now on the
night of the Passover, the Moses addressed the children of Israel
and he was going to tell them what, what happened or what was
going to happen. This is Exodus 11, seven. He says, but against
any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue
against man or beast. I recognize the first application
of that is salvation. Folks, as long as Christ is our
surety, not a dog can wag its tongue towards us. Absolutely
nothing. But concerning our walk through
this world, our Protector is Christ Himself. And that means
the evil of this world, it can't touch us. And here's what I thought
of. I thought of Joseph. thought
of a man who felt like he was touched by more evil than anybody
else. This man was sold into slavery by his brothers at a
very young age. He was a man who was cast into prison, wrongfully
accused. I bet for the majority of Joseph's
life he felt like evil was just having his way with him at all
times. Up until the point that the Lord
delivered him and made him the most powerful man in Egypt. And
at that point when he got to face his brothers again this
is what he said. He said, but as for you, you thought evil
against me. God meant it unto good, to bring
to pass, and it is this day, to save much people alive." Joseph
said this, he goes, you meant it unto evil. You sold me into
slavery. You all were acting evilly towards me. But God didn't. He meant it unto good. And the
Lord is one who does all things. And so was it evil that was working
against Joseph? No. It was goodness. It was just
described or disguised as evil. Now, what it says in our text.
It says, the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming
in. So, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to live
our lives. He's going to preserve your going
out and your coming in. So, do it. Go out. Live your life. And
come in and do it without fear. The Lord preserves us from all
evil. When you see evil creep up, recognize
that it's not evil. It's just goodness. And it's
just mercy. It just happens to be disguised as evil. All right, I'll leave you with this thought.
We started with Numbers 21, looking to the brazen serpent. And I'll
remind you of this, what was the one prerequisite for looking
to that serpent of brass and living? There was only one. You
had to have been bitten. Now this is the one prerequisite
right now for looking to Christ, for trusting him for every aspect
of your salvation and being healed. One prerequisite, are you a sinner? That's it. Everyone who's bitten
your command right now is to look to Christ. And when you
do, all these promises we just talked about here, they're all
for you, and they're made by the one who cannot lie and cannot
be dissuaded. I'll leave you there.